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  When he woke again it was the blue hour of morning. Quietly, not wanting to disturb his sleeping wife, Hugh took clean clothes from the bureau and crept to the bathroom to dress, showering in cool water, then shaving and combing his hair in front of the mirror. Hugh had a flush of grays throughout his dark hair but he weighed the same 165 pounds as he had when he was thirty—thanks to his job, he never sat still (though he did have a bad habit of polishing off the kids’ birthday cupcakes in the teachers’ room). But even if Hugh hadn’t physically changed since he’d married Anne, his thoughts felt unrecognizable. The dream about Caroline had thrown him. If it was simply about sex, by every definition Hugh’s wife was extremely attractive, tall and trim with neat black hair and crystal eyes. But in the beginning, it wasn’t Anne’s careful composition that Hugh had been attracted to.

  When they’d started dating, Anne had reached out for his hand whenever they’d left the apartment together, and even after Hugh had moved in with her, in a sweet display of vulnerability, Anne had continued to sleep with her childhood stuffed rabbit, Hop, until Teddy was born and she’d passed the bunny down to their son. Hugh remembered with real fondness the lazy weekends before they’d had children, Hugh reading on the couch with Anne’s head in his lap or the two of them taking energizing walks from Harvard Yard to Back Bay to Beacon Hill and home. On Anne’s half birthday one year, Hugh had planned an elaborate picnic, replete with a treasure map, taking the T out to the beach a day early to bury a few of Anne’s favorite things from home—a coffee mug, an inexpensive bracelet, a red pencil—for her to rediscover in the sand.

  Anne had chosen him—plucked him from the wine party in Cambridge as though he were a lost lamb—and Hugh had grown confident in the warm light of her desire. From the beginning, he’d found Anne’s subtle dependency charming and sexy, but from time to time, when Hugh had failed to meet even one of Anne’s needs—spoken or not—she’d had a way of taking them all off the table, as though she wouldn’t risk being disappointed twice. Cooperstown had only exacerbated this tendency toward self-reliance. After Anne’s second miscarriage in as many years—when Teddy was six, and Julia was three—Anne had wept openly in Hugh’s arms every night for a week. He’d soothed her with promises: it was enough; they had enough; they had their family, their kids, their careers. But Anne had wanted to keep trying for a third while Hugh was content with the two they had, and what should’ve been a difficult discussion between two people who loved each other instead became a kind of breaking point. It was hard to fathom, but more than a decade had passed since Anne had really asked him for anything. They had their busy lives, which were increasingly playing out in separate spheres—then yesterday a boy had fallen off the monkey bars and Hugh had found himself in a hospital room with a woman who could ask for his help, and he had felt excited again, turned on by his own capability. He’d remembered what it was like to need someone and be needed. Hugh pictured Caroline’s eyes now, darker than his wife’s, less like a swimming pool and more like the sea.

  Hugh tiptoed down the stairs to the front door, then drove the two blocks to Bassett and parked but did not turn off the engine. It was incredibly early, the lights in some rooms still off and the sidewalks deserted. A doctor in green scrubs crouched at the side entrance to the ER, smoking a cigarette. What if Caroline and Graham were asleep? What if the doctors were making their rounds and Hugh had to wait in that dreadful hallway? What if—now that Hugh thought about it—Graham’s father had driven up during the night, and Caroline had gone home while her ex-husband took a shift with their son?

  Caroline had said lunchtime, and Hugh decided he could wait.

  At school he was anxious and wired, but he was not the only one. Mrs. Baxter pestered him with questions about the surgery, about the recovery period, about the mother who was so difficult to track down. Cheryl arrived early for once, with dark circles under her eyes, bearing homemade sock puppets for Graham to play with. The first puppet was small, perfect for a child’s hand, and the second was a giant tube sock intended to fit over his cast. Priscilla had baked brownies and Melanie had bought ten sheets of shiny stickers and a sticker book for Graham. They drank strong coffee in the teachers’ room and talked about how awful it was until it was time for early drop-off, time to greet the kids.

  Hugh killed the morning by commissioning get-well cards from the classrooms. He went door to door, doling out construction paper and glue sticks and brand-new crayons from the emptied supply closet, which had been meant to last the rest of the school year.

  “I feel terrible,” Cheryl confided to Hugh while her kids cut with safety scissors.

  “He’s a five-year-old boy,” said Hugh. “This is what they do.”

  Cheryl shook her head. “I’ve told them a million times, ‘No one goes on top of the monkey bars. Swing, hang, but don’t let them crawl on top.’ They don’t listen.”

  “Who doesn’t listen?” said Hugh.

  “The assistant teachers. Jackie and Amy. They were on yard duty when it happened.”

  Hugh ran his hands through his hair. He was too tired to process this. “Graham’s fine,” he said.

  “Make sure he knows how much we miss him,” said Cheryl. “And play puppets with him. He’ll be so bored.”

  At noon, with the thrill of the hunt, Hugh homed in on Graham’s hospital room and sailed past the injured child to greet his mother, who had changed into a floor-length skirt and a V-neck T-shirt.

  “Hi,” said Hugh, buzzing with adrenaline.

  “Hi.” Caroline smiled.

  Hugh spun to face Graham, whose broken arm was enthroned on a stack of pillows. “Here it is!” he said, gesturing dramatically at the cast.

  Graham looked uncertainly at his arm, then back up at his principal.

  “How’s the patient?” Hugh asked.

  Caroline ruffled her son’s sandy-brown hair, then felt his forehead. “The pain medication is making him a little sick.”

  Graham reached up with his good hand and held on to his mother’s wrist.

  “I won’t stay long,” Hugh promised, but Caroline shook her head.

  “He’s in and out,” she whispered. Then, more loudly, “Graham, I think Mr. Obermeyer has something for you.”

  Only then did Hugh remember that in his hands he was clutching a cornucopia of pleasures for a bedridden child, and he pulled around a chair until he was sitting next to Caroline.

  “Everyone at school is thinking of you,” said Hugh. “Should I read some of the cards your friends made?” Graham nodded and Hugh held up the first card, a sheet of orange construction paper with glitter-filled glue lines painted down the front. When Hugh opened the card, a shower of silver and gold fluttered prettily over Graham’s gown.

  “Look at you!” said Caroline.

  Graham smiled and clutched his mother’s arm tightly over his body, fashioning a hug, and Hugh remembered with a pang when his own children had still cuddled.

  Inside the orange card was a crayoned stick figure with one arm and two legs and a seven-rung ladder in the sky overhead. Another stick—the missing arm?—floated alone at the bottom of the page.

  “Get well soon!” Hugh improvised. “Should we read another?”

  Hugh went through each card, telling stories about the pictures in an animated voice designed to impress Caroline and hold Graham’s attention against the pull of the painkillers. Graham’s eyes drooped but he seemed to be following, and after the final card he told his mother, “These are all for me.” She agreed that they were. Hugh placed the stack of cards on the table at Graham’s bedside.

  Graham beckoned for his mother’s ear and she leaned in close.

  “Ask him,” said Caroline, but Graham protested and pulled his mother’s ear toward him again.

  Finally Caroline said, “Would you like to sign Graham’s cast?”

  Gently, the plastered arm was proffered for Hugh’s signature. There were two others—his mother’s and the surgeon’s. So Graham’s father had
not been to visit.

  Near the underside of Graham’s wrist, Hugh indelibly inked his name at what he felt was a safe distance from Caroline’s blocked letters and the surgeon’s inscrutable scrawl. Hugh Obermeyer, he wrote and then felt ridiculous—Mr. Obermeyer or even Principal Hugh would’ve been more appropriate—but it was a Magic Marker, and there was no going back.

  “I have more,” said Hugh, holding up Cheryl’s sock puppets and the stickers and a Tupperware container of brownies. But Graham had turned his face toward his mother’s side and soon dropped off to sleep, her hand on his chest.

  “Poor guy,” said Caroline.

  “I’m so sorry this happened,” said Hugh. “Cheryl wanted me to tell you how sorry we all are.” They watched Graham sleep for a moment, then Hugh said, “Is it okay for you to be here all day? I mean, work-wise?”

  “Work-wise, it’s just me. It’s no problem to be here.”

  Hugh nodded. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Come,” said Caroline. “Talk to me.”

  They moved their chairs across the room to the window, where they sat close to each other.

  “It’s funny,” said Caroline, her voice low, “but I don’t remember meeting you until yesterday. Obviously I’ve seen you—dropping off Graham and everything—but it seems strange we never spoke.”

  Hugh shrugged. In the waiting room yesterday they’d talked only about Caroline—her artwork, her year living on a commune, her childhood out West. Now Caroline seemed to have taken an interest in him.

  “Some mothers want to talk all day,” said Hugh. “It’s hard to get away.”

  “Seedlings was my ex-husband’s idea. Demand, really. I would’ve been just as happy to have Graham at home with me, but Richard wanted him in school and it’s his call,” she said vaguely. “Anyway, the school has worked out beautifully.”

  “I was my kids’ first teacher,” said Hugh. “I had it easy.”

  “How many kids do you have?” asked Caroline.

  “Two. A boy and a girl.” Hugh smiled. “They’re almost grown.”

  Caroline said, “Sometimes I look at Graham and wonder where the baby went. He was so little.” She held her hands apart the width of a sweet potato.

  “He’s still little,” said Hugh. “He just has a big arm.”

  Caroline shook her head.

  “What?” asked Hugh.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on. What?”

  “It’s nice to meet someone who actually stops for two seconds to listen.” Caroline looked at him from under lowered lids, a touch of self-deprecation in her voice, and Hugh felt certain she was … not flirting, not that exactly. “You’re sweet,” she said.

  Hugh let his eyes drop to her feet—black Converse high-tops like the ones Hugh had worn in high school. He breathed, and breathed again. He still did not look at Caroline.

  “Did the doctor say how long Graham will have to stay here?” he asked.

  “Till tomorrow,” said Caroline. “Then we go home.”

  It was like watching a strand of dominoes topple: the final tile was still standing, but the pieces had been set in motion and the tiles could not help but fall.

  Hugh put his hand on Caroline’s leg.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi,” said Hugh, and he leaned forward in his chair and kissed her on the mouth.

  Now Hugh shut his eyes against the memory, a habit he’d formed two weeks ago that had left Anne asking if he needed to see their ophthalmologist. In fact his problem did feel medical, compulsive and obsessional, a movie reel running ad infinitum, a horrifying porno starring Hugh.

  With complete disregard for the proximity of the nurse’s station, Hugh’s kiss in the hospital room had been prelude to a flurry of grasping, turning, pulling, and lifting before Caroline resourcefully thought to fashion their chairs into a makeshift settee. Quickly, without speaking, they’d hurried to undress each other, Caroline unzipping Hugh’s pants, Hugh nearly dizzy with arousal to find that Caroline wore no bra. The scene had played out in extreme close-up, and it was only in Hugh’s memory that a world existed beyond Caroline’s skin, hair, mouth, tongue. He would strangle the memory if he could, leaving only the dream state of irrational, unconscious pleasure that he’d momentarily experienced, a pleasure so pure it had seemed preordained, as though Hugh had been moving toward it all his life. Which is to say, he would’ve done it. He had every intention of doing it. In fact, they almost were doing it—Hugh lowering Caroline to his lap, Caroline reaching to guide him in—when a still, small voice, thick with sleep, called out from across the room, “Mom?” and, without thinking, Principal Hugh leaped gracelessly behind the privacy curtain, sweeping it across its track.

  * * *

  Caroline’s warm breath puffed through the receiver and Hugh shifted the contoured handset to his left ear.

  “I heard about your mother-in-law,” Caroline began. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you,” said Hugh. He drummed his blotter with nervous fingers. “I was sorry to miss Graham’s first day back, but Cheryl says he’s doing great.”

  “He’s thrilled,” Caroline agreed. “He was going crazy at home.”

  Hugh waited, but Caroline did not continue.

  “My secretary said you called,” Hugh admitted. “I literally just got back to the office.”

  “But I saw you this morning,” said Caroline gently. “Remember?”

  Hugh marched his fingers across his desk, then tipped them over the edge, knuckles first. Wherever this conversation was going, she would have to take them there.

  “First,” said Caroline, “I wanted to say that you were wonderful with Graham—coming to the hospital to visit and having the teachers call to check on him.”

  Hugh hadn’t even known about the sympathy calls. “It was the least I could do,” he said.

  “Well, anyway, I do appreciate it. And I heard that your father-in-law moved in, so I’m sure this is already a stressful time.”

  “Thank you,” said Hugh. Already? Hugh didn’t speak. He did not even breathe.

  “I might as well just say it,” Caroline blurted. “Richard is looking into Graham’s fall.”

  The nerve synapses connecting Hugh’s ears and his brain shorted; the information was lost. “Sorry?” said Hugh.

  “Graham’s father is talking to a lawyer. I wanted to tell you myself, before you heard from him.”

  Hugh went rigid in his chair as the content of her words took form. “Heard what from him?”

  Caroline lowered her voice, her lips brushing the receiver. “Graham said he was standing on top of the monkey bars when he fell.”

  “Caroline,” he said. “Is this about us?”

  “Hugh, no,” said Caroline quickly. “That part was fine.”

  Fine: an indecipherability at best, a calculated reduction at worst; his children’s catchall for every suspicion, doubt, boredom, delight, wonder, fear, and disappointment; their most obscene four-letter word.

  Hugh took a deep breath, then closed his eyes and said, “Has Graham said anything about…? I mean, does he remember…?”

  “I don’t know,” said Caroline. “I don’t think so.”

  “Caroline,” said Hugh, “can we talk about this in person?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “It was hard enough to convince Richard to let Graham return to school while we sort this out.”

  Hugh thought of Anne—liability, lawsuits, negligence—she would know what to do. But in the two weeks since the boy’s fall, Hugh hadn’t breathed a word about the accident to his wife.

  “Can we slow this down?” asked Hugh. “Can I see you?”

  Caroline seemed to consider it, then said, “Can you come here?”

  They settled on twelve thirty the next day and Hugh hung up the phone.

  Paralyzing half thoughts swirled through his head. A lawsuit, Hugh could not handle. If Richard Pennington brought legal action … if Caroline was compelled to testify
… if the boy started to remember … Hugh knew enough about litigation to understand that even if they settled, everything could come out. Accidents happened—children fell—but what he’d done with a student’s mother was condemnable, and if Anne didn’t kill him first, the talk in town alone would close his school.

  Hugh pressed the intercom button and called Mrs. Baxter into his office. He asked her to pull everything they had from their insurance agency in Oneonta. He’d stay here all night if necessary—he’d read the insurance forms, he’d review the accident report, and tomorrow he’d go see Caroline.

  Hugh pictured himself as an indefensible ten-year-old watching in horror as his brother slipped through the ice below Reacher Falls. Neither running for help nor easing across the ice to try to catch George’s hand, Hugh had let the great tragedy of his life wash over him. Now it seemed as if all the decisions since had been made in that single moment of indecision—but Hugh was no longer a child. He sensed something sinewy, powerful rising up in him, a long-dormant beast stretching its shoulders and hams. He felt protective not only of his school but of himself. If Richard Pennington wanted a tangle, Hugh would be ready; and if seeing Caroline Murphy again would help him to prepare, Hugh was especially game for the fight.

  4

  Moonlight seeped through Hugh and Anne’s twin skylights, reflecting softly off Bob’s dinner plate in the darkening room. From a nearby backyard, he heard the sounds of children shouting and squealing until one of them threatened to tell, then it was quiet for a moment before they began to laugh again. A dreamlike familiarity pressed Bob back to a long-ago dinner hour with his own family, his younger brother already excused and racing off to play while Bob remained at the kitchen table with his mother watching him watching his peas grow cold. He traced a knot in Anne’s dinner table—the pine side door from his father’s dairy barn—and pictured the barn’s gambrel roof, the sliding great door, the shiplap siding. The hayloft had been big enough to encompass Bob’s entire childhood, from hide-and-seek with his brother to courting Maud Corley below a dormer on the east side.